Oakland’s policeToo many chiefs

THINGS seemed to be looking up for Oakland’s police department. Between January and the middle of March seven people were murdered in the notoriously violent northern Californian city—11 fewer than over the same period in 2015. Rapes, assaults and burglaries were down too. The department was closer to complying with the 51 reforms it was ordered by a court to implement in 2003, following a police misconduct settlement. The leader of the White House’s task-force on policing had even praised Oakland’s force, which was once a byword for abuse of power.

Then, in May, several Oakland police officers were accused of sleeping with a prostitute, who was possibly underage at the time. Separately, an investigation was launched into other Oakland officers for sending racist text messages. On June 9th, Sean Whent, Oakland’s police chief, resigned. In the nine days that followed, a replacement chief was appointed and sacked, and the replacement’s replacement, who became chief automatically, stepped down. For now, Oakland’s police department is being led by a civilian.

The turmoil has its roots in a suicide note found beside the body of Brendan O’Brien, a police officer who shot himself in September. The note, which has not been released, prompted an internal investigation. The probe mostly went unnoticed until May, when reports surfaced that three officers had slept with a woman named Celeste Guap. Ms Guap later said she had sex with more than 20 officers from four different police departments in the area, none of whom she says paid her (though several gave advanced warning of undercover prostitution stings).

This is not the Oakland police department’s first brush with ignominy. In the early 2000s, four officers who called themselves “the Riders” were accused of assaulting, robbing and planting evidence on suspects while they worked the night shift in West Oakland, a neighbourhood plagued by high crime. Since then, the department has been under federal supervision. The mayor, Libby Schaaf, who won office in part with promises to continue with reforms, issued a terse statement about the shenanigans: “As the Mayor of Oakland I am here to run a police department not a frat house.”

Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York city cop and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reckons that the Oakland mayor’s office needs to directly increase scrutiny of its police, rather than rely on the federal monitor. Recruiting better officers would also help, though he expects they will be hard to find. Distrust of police in the post-Ferguson era mean fewer young Americans want to work in law enforcement; the dubious reputation of Oakland’s police probably makes it even harder to attract motivated rookies.

Ray Long, the general manager of Bay Bridge Auto Body, a car repair shop in East Oakland, is similarly pessimistic. The neighbourhood where he tends to cars is so violent he has become desensitised to it. “Someone got shot in front of the shop recently in broad daylight and I don’t think I even put down my lunch,” he sighs. He says it took the police two hours to arrive and that when they did, they were laughing and joking around. “You can cut off the head, but that doesn’t fix the problem.”

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Too many chiefs"